THE EXCURSIONIST AT BRIGHTON.
THE second week in September, and universal John Bull is at .1. play. Not that his play makes him otherwise than a dull boy, at least to outward appearance. We scarcely think we can uphold him as at all a more seemingly joyous player than old Dan Froissart found him 400 years ago. He does it all moult tristement still. A sprightly countryman of the old chronicler the other day exclaimed to us, half in bitterness, half in joke, " Quel drole de commandment que vous aver I ' vous travaillerez six fours et vous sous ennuyerez is septieme," and no doubt this is the verdict of the intelligent foreigner in general. To him it does appear, on the best consideration he can give to the subject, that the Briton spends the little time he spares from work in boring himself. We, looking from the centre and not from an outside stand-point, are not at all prepared to admit, that there is more than a superficial truth in such dicta. What is one man's bore is another man's amusement. The only good of play that we know of is the renewal of energy, and every man's instinct, if he is really hard-worked, will lead him to the best method of reaching this. One man gets his rest in violent exercise, another in lying on his back with his hat over his eyes, another' in croquet and flirtation, the latter of which would alone come within a Frenchman's idea of play. But does any human being, French or English, get his rest in the writing of articles ? An impertinent and perverse question this, which thrust itself suddenly into our head, and so ran down through our fingers on to the paper before we could stop it, sug- gesting as it stands there revolutionary thoughts. Why should we be expected to go on writing seriously when the nation is in the humour for anything but wisdom? Coleridge's philosopher when he came out of his cave after the maddeningrain against which he had vainly prophesied, and found all his countrymen lunatics, proved his wisdom by exclaiming," It is vain to be sane in a world of mad- men," and rushing into the nearest puddle, from which he emerged as cracked as his neighbours.
Following so good an example, and casting about for a subject which shall fall in with the humour of the hour, we came upon the placard which announces in large capitals to all whom it may concern in this metropolis, that they may spend eight hours at the sea-side at Brighton for the moderate disbursement of three shil- lings. Here was a holiday text ready to our hand, and by good luck we have had recent opportunities of watching the crowds who avail themselves of this privilege, and believe that Froissart would have modified his statement had he been acquainted with the British excursionist of the period, and would have confined himself to the gently born classes, which indeed are the only ones he was in the habit of recognizing. We have at any rate seldom seen more thorough .enjoyment than that of the crowds which issue from the Brighton Station at about eleven o'clock on Sunday and Monday mornings, and troop down to the sea carrying their baskets of provender. And they have the best right to enjoy themselves, and to show it in their looks, for one may safely say that it has taken more of honest self-denial to fill one excursion train than any dozen express trains full of well appointed sportsmen, or autumnal frequenters of fashionable .
watering-places. The papers are full of the doings of these latter, of articles headed "The Moors and the Lochs," of the arrivals and departures at Torquay, Scarborough, and Harrogate. Holiday- making is in short about the most important of all businesses at this time of the year, and to our mind the most important and interesting part of the holiday-making is this of the humblest class of excursionists, though it has not yet found its poet.
"But how about the Sunday question ?"—the only opponents of the excursion trains we should care to answer plead, "Are you not undermining one of our best English habits in collecting some 2,000 of the London poor every Sunday morning, and pouring them out on the Sussex coast ?"
We are far from being thorough-going approvers of the Sunday league movement. We believe that it would be a very grievous misfortune to England if she were to lose her reverence for Sunday, and her resolute habit of not doing, or allowing, ordinary work on that day. But, on the other hand, the people have a right to decent and proper relaiation on their day of rest. They cannot have it in overgrown towns, and the railway companies as some return for the monopoly they enjoy (and too often abuse) are bound to give them the opportunity of getting it elsewhere. The real point to take care of is, that the maximum of enjoyment is got for the minimum of labour. And how stands the case with these Brighton Sunday excursion trains ? We can only speak positively as to the Brighton terminus. Here, with the single exception of the ticket-collectors, the excursion trains do not give an extra minute's employment to a single member of the whole staff. Some half-dozen ticket collectors meet the morning trains, and work for an hour or there- abouts, and again for two hours in the afternoons when the trains are leaving. There is not another officer of the company belonging to the station who has not every other Sunday wholly to himself. More he could not have though excursion trains had never been thought of. Probably matters are as well arranged at the Victoria and London Bridge stations, and, if this be so, literally the ticket- collectors, with the engineers, stokers, and guards of the three trains are the only persons upon whom any extra work whatever is thrown on these summer Sundays, and these men, be it observed, have almost the whole of the eight hours, the heart of the day, to themselves. Now we are quite at a loss to suggest any possible manner in which the like amount of innocent enjoyment can be had at anything like the same price. "Innocent, why they don't
go to church !" many good persons, including several of the Brighton clergy, have urged warmly. "Very well, then, gentlemen," we answer, "why don't you give them the chance ?" 'From our
own careful observation for a series of Sundays we beg to repeat deliberately the word "innocent." And we are very sure that if the clergy in question would arrange some short service in a convenient place they might hive the greater part of them. But our English parsons are not yet up to their business as bee masters.
We have seldom seen more likely folk for a possible con- gregation. Steady, sober, somewhat careworn artizans, the bulk of them with their wives and children—heaps of babies, —a people who march right down to the beach, and sit there on the shingle, or stroll up and down in the intervals of frequent feeding, watching the waves for hour after hour. The young folk, and there are plenty of them, particularly sweet- hearting couples, make a point of having a sail, and the most solvent, or reckless, a drive to the dyke. Then there are a small per-centage of bathers, who do their ablutions in a solemn and marvellous manner, sitting generally, and letting the waves wash over them. But the bulk are, as we said, simply overworked men and women, who get down to the waves because they find the sight, and tlie sound, and the air which comes over the waters somehow or other good for them. No such comforting investment of three shillings sterling has yet been found for them as this of getting to sit by the old sea for eight hours on a summer's day. That they have any deep or poetic thoughts about the highway of the nations we by no means believe, though doubtless, as has been remarked, "In them also are Niebelungen lays, and Made, and Ulysses wanderings, and divine comedies, if only once they could come at them ! But therein lies Cinch, nay all, for what truly is this which we name all but that which we do not possess?" Has not Tennyson himself acknowledged his shortcomings in this matter?
"'Would,' he says, that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me."
And how shall we ask more of the excursionist artizan and his wife? The thoughts which arise in them are more of shrimps than any- thing else connected with ocean, if we may judge from outward manifestation. And yet they sit and stroll thare by the sea, hour after hour, and seem to want no other amusement, and to be loath enough to leave it when their eight hours are up.
While the elders sit on the beach the children are of course attracted by the great playfellow. Early in the day they are coy with him, and keep respectfully out of his reach, gathering tufts of common sea weed and disporting themselves with the shingle. But as the hours wear they become familiar. They get nearer and nearer till some wave catches the boldest of a group. From that moment it is but a question of time,—they all become paddlers sooner or later. When fairly in, with their nether garments hauled up as high as they will go and their shoesi and stockings hanging round their necks, it would seem that the summum bonum, the actual highest happiness for the young cockney excursionist, has been then and there realized.
The excursionists may, we sincerely hope, be now said to have safely established themselves, and to be a recognized institution in the summer months. Brighton was not occupied by them, however, without sturdy resistance. In the early years of the excursion trains there was much opposition from the gigocracy which every now and then came to a head in a remonstrance with the directors. One of the last and most vigorous protests was made when the Rev. Joseph Brown (well known on the Southwark side), like Attila, or Ghenghis Khan, or any other leader of young barbarians, de- scended upon the town and occupied the esplanade with some 1,500 metropolitan nomads to his own cheek. Alone he did it I Which act of the Rev. Joseph roused once more the smouldering ire of gentility. However, when the gigocracy came to be cross-questioned it could allege nothing more heinous against the Brown family than that they rode with their faces to the donkeys' tails.
The eight hours are over, and the excursionists pack up their baskets, collect the children, who come to call with hands full of common seaweed, bedraggled lower garments, and wet shoes, and troop up to the station. For the last three months the average number has been 2,000 on every Sunday and Monday, and there have been only three cases in which the railway officials have had to detain persons for misconduct. This fact we have ascertained, and it agrees with our own experience. For we have ourselves watched train after train fill and start and have never seen a case of drunkenness or disorder of any kind. We were quite as much surprised at this as our readers will be, but there is the simple fact. There was some romping, and skylarking, and singing of such strains as " To live and die with Nancy," but nothing which could be fairly objected to by any one conversant with the every-day manners and customs of the class to which the excursionists be- long, and, as above stated, no drunkenness. The Brighton Company were, we believe, the first to start excursion trains, and have made large profits by them. They have run them now for some twelve years or so with only one serious accident. We are glad that the speculation has answered, for to our mind of all the benefits which railways have conferred on the country there have been few greater than this.
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